Alley of Batman in full, before the blackout

The news that a resident who lent his wall to compose one of the most beautiful graphite murals in São Paulo, Batman Alley in Vila Madalena, decided to promote a blackout in part of the work was received with sadness and indignation by those who value The art of graphite. The mural, in the open, brings messages from the contemporary world, under the eyes of various artists.

The history of the Batman Alley gallery began in the 1980s, when a comic-book cartoon was found on the walls of the neighborhood. The event attracted students of plastic arts, who began to make drawings of cubist and psychedelic influence on the walls of the Alley, forming the gallery of walls completely covered by various colors and social themes.

Art that is lost – The crusade against the art of graffiti in São Paulo began with the program Cidade Linda, by the current mayor João Dória, soon after his inauguration. Adopting the speech that it is necessary to end the graffiti and the dirt, the city hall looked at the graphite, and considered it as such, when erasing one of the most famous street murals in the world: Avenida 23 de Maio, built by more than 200 artists from Brazil and other countries. Graffiti that became the city’s cultural heritage, such as those depicting ancient São Paulo, between the 1920s and 1930s, were erased.

On top of the screens that tell the city’s history, its daily life and its people came in gray, closed-tone paint. The environment of vivid colors of vibrant feelings was replaced by an empty wall, in all its extension. The owner of the wall that erased one of the panels of the Alley of Batman says that the attitude of Mayor João Doria did not influence him. The repercussion in the community was negative, and according to recent news, the owner says he has regretted and wants to have his wall painted again.

Photographic rescue – The full mural images were recorded by the photographer Coralia Elias, in two recent productions made from Batman Alley. The first was in 2016 and the second in 2017, just before the blackout. With her sharp eyes, the photographer captured beautiful images that portray the soul of the population and were published in the Trash Blog to portray the culture of consumerism and pollution of the planet.

See here the production made in 2017, with all the sequence of photos of the Batman Alley.